The last couple of days I have been attempting to catch up with the Cass Art “Make a Splash” watercolour challenge to make 50 paintings by May 30. That means nearly 2 paintings a day for a month for me. I feel a little insane attempting it but the benefit is that I’m finally diving into paintings with ideas I’ve had swimming in my head.

I’m attempting more of an illustrative feel for these than my usual sketches. Learning to simplify and still make an image come across is so hard without pen for me, but I’m finding it a lot of fun trying. Simplifying this landscape is one of my top challenges, I want to get a little more depth into this.

So inspired by the spring leaves emerging on the trees lately. I love these vivid greens (much more vivid than real life obviously), and playing with tree shapes.

All the birds around here have been gathering materials for nests. This is my first attempt at a piece that tells a story.

Birds again (surprise surprise). I love the elegance of barn owls, though making the chick cute was a challenge! I actually liked the finished product enough to make it into a simple Mother’s Day card with some hand lettering.

This wasn’t an official entry in the challenge, but the weather has been so fine today that I couldn’t help going out and sketching some of the beautiful spring trees I see from our garden. It’s always good to practice since I”m sure I’ll be doing lots more trees in the next month!

Today I had a bit of time to do some sketching in a playing field while my children were at the playground. Of course this time of year it is filled with dandelions, they might be a menace but I still find them charming.

Here is the spread of dandelions I did in different ways. As I gain confidence with this art thing I like to play around with the style of a single subject.

I always love pen and ink, something about the bold line of the pen always seems to feel right to me. I also get to splash on the colour very loosely this way.

This was done directly to watercolour, no pencil or anything underneath. I tried to use the strokes and values to indicate the shadows and petals. While I like it, it seems to lack a bit of impact for me.

The final one (seen in my original shot of the spread) is where I used a darker watercolour outline in a similar way to my penwork. I was looking for a more graphic look without the pen. I did end up muddying it up a little, but maybe I’m getting somewhere with that idea. I was using a waterbrush so the marks ended up pretty thick. I also did some very loose watercolour dandelions but they just don’t read like the flower to me.

In the end I’m still not sure which one I like best, pen and ink or the one with watercoloured outlines? I’ll keep experimenting. Do you have a particular “style” that you tend to stick to? Or do you like to play around?

A few days ago I reached my 100th day of daily art (barring those couple of sick days). I felt so surprised that 100 days had already passed, but at this point it’s hard to remember a time when I didn’t draw or paint everyday. The sketch I did on the 100th day was not exceptionally exciting, another loose watercolour sketch.

But to celebrate my milestone instead of rewarding myself I decided I wanted to give thanks to a friend of mine who has been a constant support throughout my artistic journey. I met her online a few years ago but have since met her in real life and she’s just as wonderful in person. She is the proud owner of two very handsome specialty siamese cats. I’ve seen a few photos of them online and decided to do a pet portrait especially for her.

This is the prototype for her red siamese, Rio. You can tell that I really overworked this, particularly his face and the shadows. But that’s okay because this was just the first draft and I was trying to work out what colours to use and how to approach it.

My second attempt turned out much better, I feel like I captured a bit of a likeness here (long face, very large ears and regal look). I kept the shadows lighter and not so grey and did away with the distracting shadow underneath him. I sent it off yesterday and am crossing my fingers that she likes it. It is the least I can do for someone who has cheered me on every step of the way.

Do you make art for others, as a way to give thanks or to mark an occasion?

Yesterday we took a trip out to a couple of local farmshops searching for seasonal treats, particularly purple sprouting broccoli and rhubarb. Purple sprouting broccoli is only available in early spring so it always feels like an occasion when we have it. It is also quite beautiful with its purple florets, just a shame it goes green when you cook it.

I felt like dipping back in the watercolours last night and went for straight-to-watercolour slightly abstract, loose, splashy look to this spread. The broccoli is probably more abstract than I intended but the one thing I am particularly pleased with is the variation in colour. Now I’m really looking forward to the growing season to get a chance paint and draw more vegetables!

Have you done any fruit or vegetable drawings? Or growing anything in the garden this year?

It’s been a while since I’ve sketched with a pencil, I did some very early in my daily art project but then started inking over my drawings with pen and then progressed straight to pen drawings. I love the boldness of pen but decided to do some more pencil drawings to see how I felt about it.

A few tulips in my garden have just started to open and it was fun sketching them in pencil. I started out with very light lines making the basic shapes and then went progressively darker. I forgot how nice it is to have softer shadows.

In the evening I did this one of some spoons my husband carved a few years ago. The pencil works better for the texture of the wood than pen. The only things I didn’t enjoy was smudging the graphite with my hand. I worry that these probably won’t last long-term in the sketchbook.